


on my way out the door

by Jocondite (jocondite)



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-30
Updated: 2007-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 08:52:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocondite/pseuds/Jocondite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the early days, sharing a van was hard, and trying to believe they'd ever actually make it as a band was harder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on my way out the door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chesireempress](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Chesireempress).



Brent's supposed to be driving tonight, with Ryan riding shotgun, but after an hour in the back of the van (which smells like _ass_ , Brendon repeats insistently, _ass_ ) Spencer starts to grind his teeth and makes Ryan switch with him. Brendon doesn't know what Spencer's problem is; the guy has issues. Personal hygiene issues, maybe, since something in the van reeks, and it sure as fuck isn't Brendon. He was just asking if Spencer had _showered_ , jeez. Punching people in the arm is a sissy girl move, so it kind of doesn't count, but anyway, what the fuck was up with that?

He's too wired from the show to sleep, to sit still. He has one leg folded over the other, and his foot keeps jiggling. He's not even sure if it's conscious; when he tries to stop it, it goes away, but when he forgets to concentrate his foot starts tapping again, staccato.

Ryan raises his eyebrows at him when he takes Spencer's place in the back of the van, and Brendon only manages to ask quickly and suspiciously, "Did you shower?" before Ryan says "What the fuck? This is hard enough without you behaving like a total dick."

Brendon tells him to fuck off, politely, and Ryan – _Ryan,_ what the hell is even going on with this stupid band, when Ryan 'can't go on tour without his hairdryer' Ross is laying down the law? – just pulls out his phone and says calmly "We're all sick of this. We have a show tomorrow, so you're just going to have to deal."

Brendon could throttle him, maybe. That'd kill time, for sure. Knock the phone out of his hands. Take it off him and spam his address book. Throw it out of the window. He doesn't, just grunts, and they sit in heavy silence for what feels like a few hours.

Ryan even seems to fall asleep after a while, and Brendon watches him under his eyelids, the slivers of light skimming over his sleeping face. He drowses, a little, and then Ryan starts shifting, and Brendon knows that he's awake.

He watches him a little longer, and then, "What time is it?" he asks finally.

When Ryan looks up, a lick of hair falls into his eyes, and he has to brush it away with the back of one long hand. "Quarter to five, just about."

"Huh," Brendon says. They have curtains rigged up over the windows in the back, but he can see flashes of the road speeding by occasionally; the sky is still black, lit every now and then with flashes of white. They're not on the highway anymore, driving cross-country somewhere between Arizona and Texas, and the street lights are strung far apart, almost non-existent; each one, each sudden shock of oncoming headlights, comes out of the darkness as an oddity, a revelation.

"If I was at home," Brendon says quietly, "My mom would be getting me up in an hour or two for church."

Ryan doesn't say anything.

"If I'd stayed home and gone to college, I mean. I guess. If I'd gone on my mission – I don't know where I'd be, right now."

"You wouldn't have, though," Ryan says, and something about the sleepy sureness of his voice makes Brendon furious. "You might have gone to hairdressing school, maybe, or to college, but not on a mission."

"Fuck you," Brendon says, "you don't know. You don't have any fucking idea–"

"You swouldn't have."

"You don't _know_ ," Brendon repeats. "I'd be doing _something_. Something more than sitting around in a smelly van with my asshole friends just driving from gig to gig. I can't remember the last time I slept in a bed, or got to wash my t-shirts."

"Pittsburgh," Ryan says. Brendon blinks at him, so he clears his throat. "We got a motel in Pittsburgh, remember?"

"No," Brendon says, but he does. The four of them crammed into one room. Having to arm wrestle Spencer for the second shower. Lying down and falling asleep straight away, like a switch being flipped off. "I - yeah."

Ryan rarely shows his teeth when he smiles unless he's surprised into it, or so happy, genuine, that he can't help it. The smile he gives Brendon now is slight as a sphinx's. "Yeah."

Yeah, like that makes it, everything, better. Ryan's still idealistic enough to find the hardships of touring _glamorous_. Ryan's the type of person who thinks like that. Brendon wants to be at home in his bed, he wants to be back in high school, he wants to be learning how to cut hair in Arizona, far away from his family and the kids he went to high school with, out on his own.

"They're never here to see _us_ , Ryan. They're there to see Fall Out Boy, or Motion City Soundtrack, or Boy's Night Out." He snorts. "The Starting Line."

"For now," Ryan says. The faint hint of smile sitting at the corners of his mouth doesn't waver, doesn't drop, and Brendon looks down at the floor of the van, the discarded wrappers and empty Coke cans and his own feet in their battered Chucks, and he just. He _just_.

He wants to make Ryan stop smiling at him like he's the stubborn five year old who can't see the big picture. "I don't know why you sound so sure," he says. "You can't be sure. Do you know how many bands don't make it?"

"We're going to." Ryan really believes it. Brendon can tell. He's said the same thing a hundred times; said it to his friends, shouted it at his parents, whispered it in the dark. He's never believed it all the way down.

"How can you be _sure_?"

"I'm just that talented," Ryan says, his voice perfectly serious. The faint smile deepens. "So we're good. And we have you. You're a pretty decent singer, Urie. I don't know if I've mentioned that before."

"Fuck you," Brendon says, laughing a little. He doesn't know what to say, so he touches Ryan's cheek instead, letting his fingertips graze along his cheekbone and down the narrow sharp curve of his jaw. He lets his thumb rest, not quite accidental, at the corner of Ryan's mouth. Ryan inhales with a faint hitch of breath, and in a sudden brief burst of headlights Brendon can make out his throat moving. His collarbone is sharp and delicate as broken porcelain. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Ryan says. Brendon doesn't take his hand away. Ryan doesn't move.

They don't talk for a few beats. Then Ryan says, "Maybe I should get Spencer to pull over and make you walk to Tempe. Let you work the existential angst off. This is supposed to be the sleeping shift, and you're fucking with that."

"Shut up," Brendon says. "I'm good now." He pulls his hand back, and hears Ryan breathe out. Brendon's not sure if it's a relieved or disappointed exhalation. He's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed himself. He knows he's too tired to deal with anything, with the sudden sense of something palpable in the back of the van, the thousand bronze wings of the future beating against his skin.


End file.
